November 12, 2009

San Francisco at night - & - Jim Goldberg

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

Go down to the bottom of this post to read all about the Jim Goldberg talk at the San Francisco Art Institute this past Friday night -- but this photo was taken at the S.F. Art Institute out on the plaza that overlooks all of Northbeach and the bay. That's Coit Tower, of course.

f-4 at 1/4 sec. ISO-1600

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

And over this way to the right is the Transamerica Pyramid -- rather beautiful, isn't it?

f-4 at 1/5 sec. ISO-1600

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

I walked up Stockton Street and a man was grinding away at a gate -- sort of a spur of the moment light show.

f-4 at 1/250 sec. ISO-1600

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

Lights from the basement on the sidewalk in front of City Lights Books.

f-4 at 1/15 sec. ISO-1600

click photo for full-size imagephoto by Donald Kinney

Some evening I think I'll go hunting for more cable-car tracks. I bet there's numerous possibliities. I'll be careful not to get run over. The surest possibility is that I'll be clambering up several hills. That's a lot of work at my age. I am 102, believe it or not.

Light on the streets is dim, and ISO-1600 renders a noisy image. (((I normally always try to shoot at ISO-100))) I can live with the noise -- it isn't all that bad. Not as bad as the old Tri-X film I remember. I do wish there was more depth of field, though. I hate to using my tripod.

When possible, I always try to brace the camera (((or at least my body))) on something solid -- parking meters work great. Image Stabilization helps out a lot -- I don't think I would be able to hold still for 1/13 sec. without it.

Jim Goldberg

Last Friday night, acting on a tip from Brad Evans, I showed up at the San Francisco Art Institute on Chestnut to hear the renound Jim Goldberg talk about his last three years with the Magnum Agency.------------------The San Francisco Photo Alliance has a lecture schedule at SFAI, and I thought the $10 admission charge was well worth it. Note: There's going to be another a great photo talk by Kenro Izu with Said Neseibeh on December 11 at 7:30PM.------------------Jim Goldberg thinks of himself as more the creative-type than the photojournalist, but he thinks that's that's why Magnum took him on as a full partner -- to sort of artistically broaden their horizons past Magnum's traditional journalistic style.------------------If I had to desribe Jim Goldberg, I'd call him a collector of brief stories. And a combiner of those stories into the form of books.

He'll have his subjects write directly on their Polaroid photograph and sort of sum-up what's going on with their lives at that particular moment. And it is just for this moment that the more unfortunate people live for -- it's about all they have. Jim has gone to the most inconvenient of places to gather his stories. He has found people displaced and enslaved into the worst of activities, such as human trafficing. Despair everywhere in this world. The slide show was an eye-opener. ------------------Goldberg is a Professor of Art at the California College of Arts and as I mentioned, he has been a member of Magnum photo agency since 2006. He started out about 30 years ago, and he actually started his career right there at SFAI -- local boy makes good... ------------------He is currently working on two books on migration and human trafficking in Europe to be published in 2009 and 2010 by Steidl. He is represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York and the Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco. ------------------ Goldberg's work is in numerous private and public collections including NYMOMA, SFMOMA, Whitney, Getty, LACMA, Corcoran, MFA Boston, Hallmark Collection, The High Museum, Library of Congress, MFA Houston, National Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. ------------------ Jim Goldberg’s fashion, editorial and advertising work has appeared in numerous publications including W, Details, Flaunt, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Rebel, GQ,The New Yorker, and Dazed and Confused. He lives and works in San Francisco.------------------Early YearsJim Goldberg was raised in New Haven, Connecticut in a family of candy sellers. He took an aptitude test in high school that said he should do something in a field where he helped others. He went to college as a Theology major and ended up in photography when a schizophrenic Photo 1 teacher told him he had talent. With a natural curiosity to explore, and a desire to make a difference, Goldberg seeks out the displaced as his subject, choosing to be a witness to injustice, poverty and pain, and along with that the responsibility to disseminate information and to encourage change.------------------Education 1979 Master of Fine Arts (Photography), San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, USA 1975 Bachelor of Arts (Interdisciplinary Major in Photography and Education), Western Washington University, Washington, USA 1971 Theology Major, Hofstra University, Long Island, New York------------------Books 2007 Jim Goldberg & Wolf Bowig: War is Only Half the Story, Aperture, USA 1996 Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry 1995 Raised by Wolves, Scalo Publications, USA 1985 Rich and Poor, Random House, USA ISBN 0394741560

Terri Garland

Terri Garland, another SFAI graduate, opened the show for Jim Goldberg by showing her work in the South recording racism and the people who still cling so tightly to it.

She was accepted into the KuKluxKlan community some places more cordially than in others.